3 Counterintelligence Hacks You Can Start Using Today (No Budget Required)
Real, tested tools for your political activism group that can keep you safe for free.
You don’t need lots of high-end security software or a former intel pro in your activism group to shield your activities and members from infiltrators, informants, or just plain bad actors. The truth is, some of the sharpest counterintelligence tricks are low-tech and easy to implement—if you know how.
[If you think that you don’t need any of these because your side’s currently in power, by the way, stay tuned for the next article when I explain why NOW is when you need to be working the hardest.]
Informants, provocateurs, and bad actors don’t announce themselves—they slide in quietly, exploiting your trust and sloppy habits. A lot of groups think that no news is good news—if they haven’t had a problem yet, there are no problems. That’s a pretty myopic way of looking at it, and it just means the bad actors in your group are waiting for an opening. Here’s a taste of things you can do right now to take the pulse of your group and see if you already have problems waiting to become a crisis.
All of these tools are psychology-based, and leverage the rules of human behavior. You don’t, however, need to be some kind of genius to use them; you just have to pay attention and believe what your gut is telling you.
Hack #1: The Noise Filter
Flood your chats with casual chaos—jokes, memes, random updates. Real members roll with it; infiltrators will consistently attempt to push the conversation into more serious territory. After all, if your group chat is full of memes, there isn’t much for them to latch onto—which means they’ll be looking to create it. They’ll try to reroute the chat into operational details or bring up upcoming actions in an effort to get something in writing.
Serious things shouldn’t be discussed in chats anyway, and your real members should know that. If you’ve got a member who’s getting mad about the chats being “not serious enough,” you might have either an infiltrator or a mentally unstable guy who wants to do unstable things. Either way, you just saved yourself a headache.
Hack #2: Story Consistency
Ask new recruits or outside hangers-on to recount their personal motivations or past experiences multiple times, days apart. Do it casually, as part of regular “getting to know you” conversations. If possible, have multiple people do it in different ways, and ask about specific details that only someone who was there will know. Think sensory things: smells, colors, maybe even tactile things like gear.
This works because liars have a structured story overview and may even be prepared for questioning with a certain number of rote details that they’ve memorized, but might struggle on sensory things, especially over time and presented with multiple checks. Bonus points if you do this during a meal or over a few beers. People let their guard down while eating and drinking.
Most importantly, watch what they DO while they’re speaking. Are they fidgeting? Are they stone still? Are they watching YOU to see if you’re buying their story? Are they pausing between sentences and checking your reaction before saying more? Are they getting defensive?
One of the objections to this is that someone might feel ganged up on, or that they will be interested in your reaction because they’re sincere and just really want to be a part of the group. It’s true that this tactic might actually net you an ‘innocent’ party who is really emotionally invested in the cause. Emotional investment isn’t the problem—using the group as an external leverage source is, because that offers a fulcrum for leverage. Again, you just saved yourself a problem down the road.
Note: This CAN fail if someone has been extensively coached. To combat this, ask specific questions about people. Who was wearing ____? Which person did ___? What funny thing happened?
It’s not foolproof, but it’s a filter. It’ll catch the sloppy, the unprepared, and the hasty. Don’t let the perfect become the enemy of the good. ANY catch you make is an improvement.
Hack #3: The Overeager Test
This one might seem counterintuitive, but it’s one that has been used by groups over and over to excellent effect.
Give your new guys a mundane task: sorting, cleaning, counting. Something entirely boring and maybe only borderline related to the actual purpose of your group. If your group is public and involved in community service (for the record, if you ARE public, you should be doing some form of community service), then have them perform a menial task related to that. Genuine members with the right mindset will have a natural ambivalence to it; they might not necessarily LIKE it, but they understand that this is part of the deal. They might complain a bit about it, but they’ll do it.
A bad actor, however, will throw themselves into it. They’re secretly worried about getting judged, suspected, or even removed, so they’ll make sure they are all in for whatever. People hiding ulterior motives often oversell their commitment to fit in. They’re hyper-aware, so they dial up the enthusiasm or urgency to mask their real intent. Think of it as a performance: they’re auditioning for trust, not earning it naturally.
A secondary effect is that they may use their stellar performance as currency later. I helped you with ____ so I proved myself and now should have access to ______. Don’t you trust me? Haven’t I proved that I can be trusted? Look at what I’ve done for the group. This comes from Cialdini’s principles of influence; specifically, reciprocity. I did something for you, and now you will feel obligated to do something for me. If they’re trying to leverage that, pay attention.
Plants and provocateurs might have planned to get questioned, but they maybe didn’t plan for getting handed a broom or scrub brush.
Tying It All Together
These hacks—the Noise Filter, Story Consistency, the Overeager Test—aren’t just tricks; they’re windows into human behavior, honed by groups like the IRA to survive when trust was a luxury. (Remember—we don’t need to agree with a group’s goals or actions to recognize value in their security protocols.)
The tactics work because they lean on what’s predictable: infiltrators overreach, liars stumble, and genuine folks settle into the rhythm. You don’t need a psych degree to spot it—just a willingness to watch and understand what you’re seeing.
These are in no way the only hacks, either. There are plenty more, but these will get you started. I’ll go over more in later articles.
One more thing: if you’re skipping these because your side’s “winning” right now, you’re doing it wrong. The best time to root out problems isn’t when the roof’s on fire—it’s when the weather’s clear and you’ve got room to build. Next time, I’ll unpack why this moment, this supposed victory lap, is when your group’s survival hinges on doubling down.
Don’t wait for the crisis to prove you right—it’ll be too late then. Start now: toss some chaos in your chat, ask that new guy his story twice, hand him a broom and see what he does. Every catch, every hunch you trust, is a problem averted before it becomes a crisis. Like it or not, when it comes to activism, the real fight might be right there in the room with you.